Michael Printup has been president of Watkins Glen International since June of 2009. He is set to oversee his sixth NASCAR Sprint Cup Series race at the road course when it hosts the Cheez-It 355 at The Glen on Aug. 10.

Question: Is being president of Watkins Glen International what you expected?

Answer: It is. That and more. It's a lot harder than I thought it was going to be, in a good way. You're just trying to always promote what we have here. It's the fun and the hard part of it because we have so many different events here. You're not just promoting one type of racing or one event. From SCCA to the Wine Festival to Vintage to now the Ferrari Challenge to obviously the Cheez-It 355 — all those change drastically and you kind of don't think that when you walk in the door here. You realize you have different (geographic) targets and different demo targets for every one of those groups. It's harder, but it's a ball.

Q: Is there anything in particular you take pride in in terms of what has been accomplished since you've been at Watkins Glen?

A: First of all, what I'm always really happy with is the capital investment the company has put back into the track. These facilities are very capital friendly in terms of they just suck in dollars because they're so large and massive, so a million dollar improvement doesn't look like much. If there's anything that I'd like to say that we've done over the last five years — and the team has worked really hard — our slogan is fans are first. I think that's one of the things we have been able to drive home the last five years is the fans come first, corporate America comes first, the media comes in and everybody that comes into the track that is a partner is important to us.

The new grandstands we're particularly proud of. Hopefully the board will approve our repave for next year. That's $10 to $20 million. Some big, heavy investments from the company and I think that's the best thing we do. We've gone up in attendance over the years, so you can't be sad about that.

Q: How tricky is it to balance the track's history with upgrades?

A: I think it's really tricky. I don't ever want to lose that (history), at least when I'm here. And I think 99 percent of the staff, we don't ever want to lose our history. The Friday night vintage race down here (in the village), even though it's not our event, we help promote it and we do a lot of things blending the new with the old. That's why you always see the Armco and the blue. That's why we had the old starter's stand re-erected. That was shelved years ago and here it was sitting in a barn in storage. That was almost $100,000 just to get that thing re-erected. That was the pinnacle for me this year, getting that back up so fans can see what it's like.

Q: Five-time race winner Tony Stewart missed last year's race with a broken leg. Your thoughts on having him back?

A: Obviously I'm glad he's healthy. I'll tell you, it was a public relations hit. Tony and I are good friends, too, so personally I was concerned about his health. But I knew he was OK and that he would recover in his own Tony fashion. But I think having Tony coming back and having his wins here like he has, he definitely has a solid chance to pull off something really smart here.

Q: Watkins Glen has hosted IndyCar and the Truck Series? Any thoughts on potential future additions to the track's schedule?

A: We have our hands full right now. I want to make sure we don't take on too much because we're going to make everything else slow down. We put a lot of passion into the events we have. If we're going to do something new, it might be to the detriment of something that's already here.

But I haven't talked to IndyCar in two and a half years. I don't even think they're ready to talk to us, to be candid. We don't have any desire with their current business model to run here. Their business model is insane. They're asking way too much money for a product that you can't sell enough tickets to and obviously that puts you in red ink land. And there's no TV; corporate sponsors aren't following them. If your corporate sponsors and TV won't follow, it's very difficult to host one of these races. I love IndyCar, as you well might remember, and I'd love to have them back. From a business model point of view, I can't see doing it.

Q: The Six Hours of the Glen was held in June as part of the newly unified TUDOR United SportsCar Championship. This was also the third year with a later June start for the race. How have those changes worked out for the track?

A: Moving the race was something we were trying to do almost since I got here. We all knew, especially me having kids in school, that the first week of June is exams and people are getting ready and parents are trying to gear down too and get ready for summer. Moving it instantly was an attendance boost. And this past year with the unification of the United SportsCar series, we knew it would be another big boost for us so we're really happy about that. We saw what we thought we'd see in terms of attendance growth. That's not arrogant. They had 29 races between the two of them and they condensed it down to 12. It's just a matter of geographic location, too. Mosport (in Ontario) being the closest one and then Virginia being the next closest, we really had the Northeast corridor wrapped up pretty well. So we were excited about that. We also knew that we'd have a big corporate growth, which we did. Vendor row was three-quarters the size of NASCAR and that has never happened since we hosted Grand-Am/IMSA. We were really excited about that. I hope that continues.

Q: Given how successful the Phish festival was in 2011, are similar music events something the track would like to do down the road?

A: Absolutely. I've been talking to a few promoters already just seeing if we could get something moving for next year. Obviously I would love to have Phish come back. They were just so respectful and just so nice. The management was unbelievable and the band was just fantastic. They put on an unbelievable show. The fans were coming up to me thanking me for having them. I was like, 'Jeez, I didn't even do that much.' I felt embarrassed. That's something we could do and the reason — not to contradict my earlier point (about the schedule) — is we just rented the facility to them. That wasn't us promoting it. We had no promotions, we had no ticket sales, we had no security. My team did not have to work for that event.

The only thing I would have to be personally and professionally cognizant of is I don't want to chase out racing business for concert business. We're a racetrack first. If there's some one-off concerts that we can do that add some content to Watkins Glen, adds some public relations content to it, some media content to it ... really I looked at that Phish festival as gaining some fans there. I don't know where in that group, but that's a pretty broad group. They were 15 to 72.

Q: What's ahead for the track? Anything you'd like to see happen?

A: This is just me talking, I'd love to see them race The Boot. I think putting NASCAR in The Boot would add such a dynamic to this racetrack. It might scare a lot of people too. It's my wish, it's been Tony (Stewart's wish). There have been a couple of other road course guys out there who have said to do that. If you think about it, NASCAR Sprint Cup and Nationwide are the only two races that don't race The Boot. Everything we host here races The Boot. It would be interesting. I understand there's a lot of concern, particularly that corner right here (points to a painting showing Turn 6 heading down into The Boot) and the angle. That left-hander is a tough turn for a Cup car, but we'll figure out I guess if we ever get the opportunity.

Then maybe the more reasonable one is I'd like to put a wish list in and maybe have a road course in the Chase. But you have to be in September at the latest just due to our weather factor up here. I think that would be fun.

Q: What's ahead for you?

A: Personally and professionally just keep growing this business. I just recently took a promotion and now oversee Michigan International Speedway. I really want to stay here and I asked my boss, John Saunders, and said, 'I'd just prefer to stay here for now.' He was like 'All right, let's stay here and keep working and we'll add tracks as we grow, as we go together.' Right now I'm in a perfect scenario. I get multiple racetrack responsibilities, I get to stay in Watkins Glen. My family and I love this area. My kids love it. I've moved a lot with this company, so I've got to ask, let my kids settle down a little bit. I want to have a mortgage longer than five years.

MICHAEL PRINTUP

Age: 49.

Residence: Horseheads.

Family: Wife, Stephanie; sons Brendan (16) and Matthew (10).

Hometown: Hamburg (near Buffalo).

Previous jobs: Has worked for Watkins Glen International's parent company, International Speedway Corporation, since 2000. Was senior director of facility management at Michigan International Speedway, before coming to Watkins Glen. Vice president of 380 Development LLC and vice president of Americrown Corporation from 2000 to 2005.